Saturday, June 30, 2007

Her mother was a poet and doll-artist, her father a scholar of philosophy and religion. A practicing Wiccan, Finch's poetry is inspired largely by her relations with the natural world, especially the landscapes of Maine. The forms of Finch's poems are almost always complex and musical; their themes draw upon earth-centered spirituality, myth, sex, and childbirth. Uniting all of her work is a conception of poetry as essentially incantatory, performative, speaking to the body as much as to the mind.- from the Annie Finch and Poets.org websites.

The role of the poet, as of every citizen, is to be first a fully engaged citizen, either of a family or a community or a subculture or a nation or the planet or of any other group that feels like the right fit.- from an interview on Here Comes Everybody, 2005.

i-Outlaw version 2.6 also features fine poetry, in order of appearance, by:

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

This episodic mini-show brings long lost forgotten writings to your 21st century ears. Joe McDonald reads in the original ancient languages along with his translation. Come listen to ancient Greek, Hebrew and even modern Kyrgyz stories and poems given fresh life.

Episode 1 features the writing of Basil of Seleucia with his piece called 'The One on Saint Elijah'.

Joseph McDonald has been studying languages dead and living for about a decade. After reading Greek and playing music in his formative years he moved with his wife to Kyrgyzstan, where he taught English in a rural school and learned Kyrgyz over glasses of fermented horse milk. He traveled in India after his time in Central Asia and eventually made his way to the Bay Area, where he read Hebrew, Greek, and German under the Jesuits in Berkeley. He holds an M.A. in Biblical Languages and is contemplating further study in ancient Semitics and Hebrew poetry.